So, the little man turned six months old on the 7th of December. Half a year! God. I feel like I just gave birth yesterday. I wonder at what point I can stop using 'But I just had a baby!' as an excuse...
He has such a little personality. He is stubborn like his father but SO NOISY (which is not like Lee AT ALL). We have been feeding him solid foods for a few weeks now, and there seems to be no middle ground with his hunger. He is either super keen and gobbles down literally a whole cupful of food, or he doesn't want anything and will clamp his mouth shut and stare me down in a battle of wills. We are doing a bit of a combo of baby-led feeding and purees, so I give him pureed food then a chunk of something too. This morning I gave him a chunk ofpeach and he loved it - squished it up and smeared it all over himself.
His sleeping habits had totally turned to rubbish, with feeding more at night than in the day and being grumpy all the time. So I got all Tough Love Mama and let him yell. I figured that it was best to nip the bad sleep habits in the bud before he is old enough to stand or sit up and properly miss me, and the health nurse said that a six-month-old baby doesn't really need food during the night, especially as he has more than doubled his birth weight and is clearly a very healthy little chunker.
It was absolutely heartbreaking to listen to, but I consoled myself by reading studies on how sleep training is NOT bad for babies and is better in the long run. I kept telling myself that we aren't doing it TO him, but we are doing it FOR him.
Anyway, the first night he woke up three times and cried for about 45 minutes each time. I went in after 5 minutes of crying, to calm him down a bit and flip him back over if he was on his tummy. It was a pretty horrendous night, but the next day he seemed happy and had two two-hour naps, which is unheard of.
And it has totally paid off, as the next night he work up twice and cried for 15 minutes each time, and last night he SLEPT THROUGH. Ohhh yeah. He woke up at 5am ready for the day, so I fed him and he fell back asleep until 7.30am. And then went back down for a nap at 10am and is still asleep now at 11.45. He is happier and smilier and calmer than usual too. Parenting WIN!